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THEY need us, they fear us, they must work with us and they’re suspicious of us. Americans. But possibly the best thing they do for us is let their officials write books.

Because those books end up telling us something — about us. And them. Mostly incremental stuff, but usually useful.

And the latest contributor is Michael V. Hayden. Retired four-star air force general, former NSA chief and former CIA director.

The Pakistan Army has never, ever so relentlessly hunted an enemy that wasn’t India and is Islamist.

A man who spanned the world of US intelligence and intelligence-led counter-terrorism operations between 1999 and 2009 — years that changed the world, and Pakistan.

So, what Hayden has to say in Playing to the Edge: American Intelligence in the Age of Terror is necessarily interesting — accepting that all spies, including CIA, dissemble:

“[W]orking with Pakistan, and working with ISI in particular, was always very difficult. Pakistani and American interests in Afghanistan and in the region were not the same. That didn’t evolve out of malice, but of very different worldviews.

“In an effort to figure out why, I often asked myself, What constitutes Pakistan? Some nations (like Germany) put a lot of stock in blood; others (like us) wrap themselves around ideology. What about Pakistan?

“I came up with two things. First, it was not India. And second, Islam. And it soon became clear to me that it didn’t matter what specific issue I was raising with my ISI counterpart.

“Fundamentally, what I was asking my partner to do was to pay less attention to India (which he would never do) and cooperate with me in making war on a small and particularly virulent slice of Islam (which he would find very difficult to do).”

Hayden’s official contacts with Pakistan — the very highest echelons of power in Pakistan — ended in early 2009.
Since then, Pakistan has moved on.

Since then, we haven’t talked to India, but neither have we tried to fight them. Since then, we have fought what is already by far and away the longest war in our history — against Islamists.

Since then, Pakistan has paid less attention to India and made war on a small and particularly virulent slice of Islam.
Since then, has Pakistan changed?

Lurking in the background of Raheel’s war has been that question.

Musharraf first suggested it, Kayani flirted with it, but Raheel has taken it up most forcefully — the Pakistan Army has never, ever so relentlessly hunted an enemy that wasn’t India and is Islamist.

And have a look at what comes next. In nine months, Raheel will go home. Whoever follows Raheel will be even more steeped in counter-insurgency and counterterrorism than Raheel.

After that, the guy who’ll follow the next chief, some four years from now, will possibly know little else in his career as a commander other than fighting militancy and terrorism.

With that kind of future, the army can’t possibly stay the same, can it?

It is a seductive idea: an army rooted in fighting India and championing Islam being forced to fight rabid Islamism and learning through counter-insurgency and counterterrorism who the real enemy is.

But like most seductive ideas, its veracity is suspect. Militancy may be a long war, but it will eventually be won, more or less. Meanwhile, the eternal enemy will have only grown stronger and pulled further ahead.

So, by the time the military will emerge victorious, more or less, in the longest war in our history, it will be faced with the most powerful and militarised a foe it will ever have had to contend with — India.

That’s one way of looking at it.

There is, of course, another way of looking at it: the India obsession got us into the militancy mess to begin with, so ratchet down the India obsession and most other problems will dilute themselves.

Essentially, save Pakistan by making Pakistan about Pakistan instead of the not-India, Islamist version of Pakistan.

But counterterrorism operations and counter-insurgencies don’t rewrite the DNA of countries. It’s institutions that do.
And here Hayden presciently, if a little obviously, identified the problem: the ISI.

“ISI was a complex organisation. We got along well enough with the counterterrorism branch, but we also knew that, all the while, other parts of the organisation were sustaining Pakistani ties to Pashtun and other militants as a head against Indian establishment.”

And this: “But ISI often acted like a plural noun.”

And this, too: “ISI was a heavily compartmented organisation.”

Until the plural becomes a singular, until the compartments all don’t collapse into one, the old problem will remain — whatever else needs to be fought will be fought, but the core will always be focused on India.

Even Raheel — determined, decisive, pragmatic Raheel — has not been able to collapse plural into singular. He wasn’t able to with the dharna and he hasn’t with Afghanistan and he can’t with India.

But in Hayden’s ruminations about Pakistan he also unwittingly identifies a contributing factor to Pakistan’s India obsession: the US itself. America needs us, America fears us, America is suspicious of us — but America still works with us.

Shuja Pasha is duplicitous, Kayani is reluctant — but each of them is courted assiduously and from each of them is extracted cooperation that America found just enough of to avert its eyes from all else that may have been going wrong.

So, like many American principals who’ve written books before him, Hayden too avoids a basic question: is Pakistan the way it is because that is the way it is or because that is the way it is allowed to be?

On DawnNews

Comments (26) Closed

Cyril, this is your finest article to date. Analytical, thoughtful, reasoned. Pursue the
thought. Stay with it for some time and explore the questions you have raised.

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sonny afridi

Feb 28, 2016 07:32am

If you see the world, it is ridden with conflicts and they are increasing day by day, not reducing , countries are fighting each other and within countries too conflicts are the norm , so I don't feel as optimistic as the author opines.

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Amjad Wyne

Feb 28, 2016 07:57am

It was not the Indian obsession that got us into militancy - it was the lure of getting closer to the US, Britain and Saudi Arabia that got us into this mess...

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zoro

Feb 28, 2016 08:49am

WOW ... as always ... Thoughtful op-ed ... Kudos ..

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VENKAT

Feb 28, 2016 09:07am

Cyril has explained very clearly, why India is reluctant to talk to Pakistan, though that was not the purpose of the article. Good analysis, as usual

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Ali Shah

Feb 28, 2016 09:23am

Really enjoyable article Cyril. Love the questions you raise in the end. The books end up raising more questions than answers.

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Munir Ahmad Kakar

Feb 28, 2016 09:59am

So what Cyral is essentially saying is that we are an enigma that no one has really understood. Leave American aside even we have miserably failed to come up with an appropriate answer to the question as to who we are. Yes we know who we are not but when it comes to self-identification we are jumbled and muddled. An easy exit from labyrinthine is Islam but it abhors Nation State which we are. So the struggle is on and the war will continue. We are still misreading Islam and resultantly the predicament is likely to continue. Enjoyed reading the brilliant article.

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Ashok Ramakrishnan

Feb 28, 2016 10:15am

Excellent article like all your earlier articles , guess this is the DNA of the subcontinent.

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Arun

Feb 28, 2016 10:57am

Kudos, man! Awesome, excellent! You must love Pakistan so much to write like this. And you've picked the right parts of Hayden's book too.

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Rajdeep

Feb 28, 2016 11:07am

Excellent piece of analysis.

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brr

Feb 28, 2016 12:31pm

Very insightful writing - god job. The answer for the last line: Pakistan the way it is because .... that is the way it is wants to be.

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imtiaz rjar

Feb 28, 2016 01:08pm

great analysis.....thank u cyrill

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Pakistani

Feb 28, 2016 01:27pm

Fine article PERIOD...

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Parvez

Feb 28, 2016 01:30pm

Always read you ....... because I find your views interesting.

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Atam Vetta

Feb 28, 2016 02:05pm

Ex-Intelligence chiefs write books that are heavily censored and should, therefore, be treated with caution. Further, the world has changed. Today, China has $trillions in foreign deposits and the USA survives on it. Under Xi, wars are out. It is trade, trade & trade. The old silk road that made both China & India prosperous in the old times is back in the form of 'belt & road'. CPEC is just one part of it. The Pak Army will have a big task, namely, to defend it and, rightly, plans to raise a force of 10,000 to take on all sorts of terrorists. It will be a big job. After it begins all 4 neighbours, China, Af, Iran & India will learn to admire the Pak jawans who defend the trade and their prosperity. The past will then be truly dead and buried DEEP.

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Planettrekker

Feb 28, 2016 05:34pm

Honest, self-analytical article that perfectly describes the dope dealer vs. addict, (sometimes inter-changeable) roles that defines the toxic, jilted-lover, sugar-daddy , two-timing relationship between the US and Pakistan. This has dark regional repercussions and the evidence is there for all to see.

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Mustafa R.

Feb 28, 2016 06:57pm

Among the Muslim nations that make up a contiguous landmass larger than USA and Canada put together, Pakistan is the largest Muslim country by population. American officials would stay in a state of perpetual frustration and angst if they try to reduce us into a Bangladesh.

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Sufyan

Feb 28, 2016 08:05pm

Dear cyrus.. I like your style.. but sometimes it is like completely difficult to follow you.. please write in simple words and thoughts sometimes

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Mustafa R.

Feb 28, 2016 08:17pm

@Planettrekker;

Afghanistan has provided another metaphor for this relationship; 'Quagmire and a rescuer', look where you are trekking, planet is no longer unipolar.

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Azfar A Khan

Feb 28, 2016 08:34pm

A very well written article! I think till such time civil administration doesn't take over after clearance of the area by the army, the operation would remain inconclusive. The IDPs should also be brought back with respect and provided all possible help.

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AB, US

Feb 28, 2016 09:35pm

An mesmerizing article. Analysis with a rigor and hope politicians on both sides of the border have the intellectual capacity to understand the core of the problem. Hope some day we learn that we do not cut our own branches of the tree it hearts the other ones too.

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Pravin

Feb 28, 2016 11:18pm

As always instructive and cutting, makes a good reading. Keep it up Cyril. Thank you.

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KenSAM50

Feb 29, 2016 07:14am

Excellent article! It is a shame that the Raj did not hold together. South Asia might rival East Asia in economic might. While the South Asian fight one another, the Chinese seize the South China Seas. That will not satisfy them for long.

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Mdsr

Feb 29, 2016 12:09pm

United States sales F16s to us, they promise India that they'll set up factories to manufacture F16s in India, they are the ones who establish Alqaeda to counter Russia, the terrorists use their armors, so who is responsible for all this havoc definitely its the Americans.

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Usman Khan

Mar 01, 2016 01:09am

after almost a year, you have answered the question I asked. Is this all hogwash or are the 'establishment' convinced about cleaning up the house. The problem is that the civvies never had a problem with India and making peace deals. They can read the tea leaves on the giant neighbor taht is growing militarily by leaps and bounds and their inability to do much but the military needs its raison de etre' which is to fight. All in all, it can't be a bad idea to root out the rot from inside the ranks and files (civilian and not so civilian both).

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Jagmohan

Mar 01, 2016 06:55am

@KenSAM50 Very interesting point of view. While tiger cubs fight the dragon takes over the forest.